A Worm on a Hook
by The House by the Cemetery
Summary: A rumour in Goblin Town has it that something in the lake under the High Pass eats and kills things bigger than fish. This does not stop the king from sending down fishers every now and then.


Cursed cave, cursed lake. Cursed pale fish with their enormous eyes in the cursed water.

_"Luzumgof goes and fishes, or somebody else goes with Luzumgof's dangly bits as bait."_

And since that was the nature of the order, Luzumgof went like a good little Orc with his fishing rod and some worms, cursing the new king of the High Pass as well to be on the safe side. Bloody fool lived up to the reputation of the last ones in nothing but eating fish, and practised this single forte of his by sending down goblins to fish for him as though it made up for his flaws. And that was not so bad, he could have thought of more ridiculous things for his underlings to do than squatting by a lake under the mountain; the problem was that not only fish lived in the lake.

That is, a problem for those who had to fish and a matter of little concern for the king.

_"Looks like Ofgolk's not coming back, Your Highness."_

_"So it seems. Well then, we won't be having fish today. Have the hunters returned yet?"_

Of course, one might say in the king's defence that these days there were far fewer hunters to send out, and not all thanks for that could be given to the Beornings horneting around the High Pass; a call had issued forth from Mordor, Sauron's call, or whatever it was that he wished his underlings to call him. It meant open war in the near future, and all who were capable of aiming with a bow had to prepare to hunt more than brainless prey, and the king could think whatever he liked of it.

_Maybe I could, too..._

Luzumgof heard rustling behind him and had such a fright that he misstepped and nearly rolled into the cave instead of sneaking there. Luzumgof, the greatest hunter of the Third Age. At least he had not managed to toss his torch into the water as he stumbled.

_"Don't your eyes see in the dark, Luzumgof? You're always sitting down there with a rod in one hand and a torch in the other."_

_"Who knows what sort of stick he squeezes there all morning, he certainly never comes back with any decent catch. Well, run along now so we can have something to eat one of these days."_

Grimacing with irritation, Luzumgof set the torch between some stones and began to squeeze the hook into the worm. He almost felt sorry for the little squirmer; goblin and worm were both shut into the caverns of the earth, and both were close to death when they dared to go to the surface. But the worm had no torch with which to blind its enemies, and so Luzumgof, possessed by a sense of superiority so rare to him, thrust the hook through the worm with force and an audible crunch as though he were a warrior impaling an enemy. He then sat down and started to fish.

_"Maybe it's a big fish? Can a fish catch its food from the ground?"_

_"Suppose it's another one of those things they've got down in Moria as a gate-guard. Hasn't it got those long arms or something?"_

The float bobbed cheerfully on the black water's surface, concerning itself with neither the monster that possibly lived in the lake nor the goblin that feared it. And would you look at that, the float had good reason to be glad; in a fit of unbelievable luck, the fish bit almost immediately. Not a little one, either. So at least this side of the lake was free of any threatening things that might move in it.

But what of its surface?

_"Suppose it's not a fish at all but something with legs and lungs? Then it would be easy for it to crawl to the shore and, say, lurk behind a rock while someone..."_

_"Let me tell you though, so Ruzûkh heard from Lufirtal that Negzhal once went down there to do who knows what, and some sort of strange gulping sounds kept coming from near the water!"_

_"But there _is_ water there, even still water can make sounds."_

_"Yes, but apparently Negzhal also heard the stones rustling, and the water there definitely doesn't move stones."_

_"..._skai_, it's enough to make cold shivers run down a lad's spine. The things we Orcs have to put up with."_

_"But at least we don't have to go there."_

_"You can say that again!"_

Although Luzumgof realised the uselessness of glancing around in the realm of an invisible enemy, he glanced all the same. And he had not chosen a place with plenty of small, slippery stones to make walking difficult for himself; should someone approach him on the ground, it would surely make noise and then he would take his torch and...

The float slipped below the surface again. Such good luck! This one too was large enough to sate even the king's hunger. Having been blessed in such way even Luzumgof might have forgotten his tension, but as a goblin he could not help being suspicious of his fortune. Had the fish become particularly hungry since last time? And if they had, did that mean that they were running out of whatever it was that they ate from the lake?

Then Luzumgof grimaced again. Perhaps the fish weren't running out of food after all, but for one reason or another had started to change and now some of them ate those that ate... algae or such things...

_"There were some fishbones, mind, when I last went there. Saw them at the shore. Suppose the water brings the dead ones all the way to the rocks now and then."_

Or then they had always eaten each other. There was nothing unusual about that, after all, but it did force one to once more consider the possibility that the goblin killer lived in the water and was some manner of large fish too. Luzumgof had once heard of the kinds of fish that lived in the outside world, capable of jumping a short distance out of the water and quickly tugging their prey under the surface. And now that the thought was on top of his mind again, it wouldn't leave so easily. There was certainly room for one monster in such a black and deep lake, wasn't there? One large fish that drowned goblins wandering the shores of the calm and cold water, nibbling the flesh off their bones.

Once again the float disappeared under the surface, and this time Luzumgof almost cried out aloud. While his heart busied itself with the task of battering his ribs, he stared at the dancing fishline until he finally managed to believe that this particular fish was not big enough to pull him into the lake. He pulled it to the surface instead as horror still tickled at his throat. Another large one. Shuddering, Luzumgof strung it along with the others. His rare fortune was starting to seem ominous, something that he would end up paying for dearly. But catching some fish wasn't going to do any good if he had to pay for them before anyone could eat them, was it?

Maybe the goblin killer of the cave lake hadn't thought of the matter that way. Maybe its logic said it was enough of an honour for one to catch the plump fish, able to enjoy them later or not, and it would exact its toll by eating both goblin and fish.

Luzumgof jumped to his feet and fumbled for his torch, eyes still locked to the lake. Shaken loose by the movement, one of the stones rolled out of its place and he stumbled. As the water flooded the gap left by the stone there was a small sound, like a gulp, and Luzumgof's fear-addled brain couldn't ignore it as an innocent sound of nature.

"No more," he whispered, bending over the stones. The goblin killer couldn't possibly be hiding under them, but he had to look, had to be sure, and in a fit of panic he dug into the rocky ground with his torch...

If there was one type of bone Luzumgof recognised, it was that of another goblin. Taken from a thigh, gnawed clean of flesh, buried under the stones. It had been cleanly broken in twain by something that had hands for tools, something that knew of the marrow it hid and how one could go about getting to it. Senseless panic robbed the voice out of Luzumgof's throat, but not the cornered rat's desire to defend itself that even he was capable of. Eyes darting wildly from water to stone and back to water again, he swung his torch at all directions he even thought he could hear something from. His own feet, slipping on the stones, made them clatter against each other, and the dim light of the torch cast shadows into all the hiding places of the shore.

"No more," he repeated, and his voice was but a sob in the dark. His lungs seemed to have become too small for the air escaping them, his mouth too small for the scream swelling behind it.

Luzumgof stayed that way on the shore of the lake for a long time before his senses believed that the thing in the cave was not going to attack him. Perhaps it was digesting a better meal in a hiding place somewhere. Luzumgof picked the fish off the ground with trembling hands and left the cave as fast as he could, weakened by terror as he was, still waving his torch to and fro like a talisman. All the joy of a good catch had burned out, and the silly dream throbbed now at the back of his head, real and compelling; he too would have to answer the call of Mordor, he too would learn to shoot a bow and use a sword and battle against an enemy he could see and smell.

And once he was gone, the lake in the cave was once more calm and still; for its inhabitant had also answered the call of Mordor, driven out by the intolerable fear and thought of a life without its precious treasure. But the goblins of the High Pass had no way of knowing that, and they didn't send down as many fishers as they would have liked, and so the fish of the lake ate and multiplied and grew bigger and bigger in the depths of the cold and black water.


End file.
